Forget "Unpredictable" Women—Are Men Too Emotional for Politics?

Have you ever heard someone say that women are great, just not at certain things? Often this comes up when the thing in question is a physically demanding job, e.g., cop or soldier. But it’s also used to discourage women from entering certain professions—apparently, we lack not just physical strength but mental toughness. As a lawyer named Isidor J. Kresel explained to a New York women’s club in 1929, despite having won the right to vote nearly a decade earlier, American women are “not yet fitted to discharge the duties of high political office.” According to The New York Times, the ladies vigorously applauded.

Sadly, this view of women isn’t a relic of a bygone era. In 2008 former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly invited Marc Rudov, author of such books as Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables, on his show to discuss the potential “downside” of electing a woman president of the United States. “You mean besides the PMS and the mood swings, right?” Rudov quipped. (He later went on to say he would support a female candidate, provided “she doesn’t have a female agenda.”) In 2015 the female CEO of a Dallas PR firm gained national attention with a Facebook post in which she posited that women shouldn’t be president or “able to start a war” because of “hormones.” Several months later the rapper T.I. said, “I can’t vote for the leader of the free world to be a woman…women make rash decisions emotionally—they make very permanent, cemented decisions—and then later, it’s kind of like it didn’t happen, or they didn’t mean for it to happen. And I sure would hate to just set off a nuke.”

Women are supposedly too emotional, impulsive, volatile, and/or thin-skinned for politics. But if any group has proved to be dangerously emotional in office, it’s men. Donald Trump, the current President of the United States, is a vain, impulsive, status-obsessed, easily distracted Twitter addict. He’s hypersensitive to slights and allergic to sober deliberation. That he has been compared on multiple occasions to a teenage girl is an insult to young women.

If being a woman means being emotional, male politicians have been getting in touch with their feminine sides for decades. Minnesota Rep. Bob Dettmer recently demanded an apology from his female colleague, Melissa Hortman, who had criticized white male legislators like Dettmer for leaving the room to play cards when their female colleagues were speaking. Because Hortman had called out white men specifically, a visibly emotional Dettmer said her words were “really not appropriate.” In April a Texas congressman wept openly while praying for God to forgive America the "sins" of legal abortion and same-sex marriage. Ex-congressman Anthony Weiner, whose compulsive sexual behavior ended his political career, cried in court as he pleaded guilty to transmitting obscene material to a 15-year-old girl. And Montana Republican Greg Gianforte pleaded guilty to assaulting a reporter who asked a question he didn’t like; the days after the assault, he was elected to Congress. Gianforte later apologized, saying, “I took an action that I can’t take back.” (What sound judgment! How confidence-inspiring!)

Here are just a few of the Male Politicians Who Have Cried in Public: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Darrell Issa, Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Vladimir Putin, Bob Dole, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner cried in public so often that the ladies of The View dubbed him “Weeper of the House.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’sresponse to a question about Boehner’s tears is revealing: “He is known to cry…. If I cry, it’s about the personal loss of a friend…. But when it comes to politics—no, I don’t cry.” Does anyone seriously think Pelosi would have become the first female Speaker of the House if she did?

Perhaps the most famous female tears in American politics were shed by former Colorado Rep. Patricia Schroeder 30 years ago, in 1987. Schroeder cried while announcing that she would not seek the Democratic nomination for president. Many women criticized her for it, fearing, with good reason, that it would be seen as evidence that women were unfit for office. In 2007 Schroeder told USA Today that she still faces criticism, especially from other women.

Then there’s Hillary Clinton. After Clinton lost Iowa to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary, a woman at a New Hampshire campaign stop asked how she kept going through such a grueling campaign. Clinton teared up while answering, igniting a frenzy of speculation about whether it was a genuinely emotional moment or a calculated political performance and, in notable contrast to Schroeder’s treatment, stimulating a groundswell of female support that led to Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire. Dick Morris, a political adviser turned Fox News commentator who resigned from Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign after his relationship with a prostitute was revealed, derided Clinton for “letting her emotions fall out of her.” Conservative commentator Laura Ingraham said, “We can't have people who break down and start crying at the most difficult moments.”

This is a far cry, if you will, from the praise a CNN commentator heaped on notoriously hot-tempered New Jersey governor Chris Christie for being “an honest, open governor that does show his emotions,” and from conservative radio host Lars Larson’s defense of John Boehner: “That’s a man’s man, who gets choked up about his country and about the issues he feels passionate about.” Big girls don’t cry; men’s men do!

Given that literally dozens of male politicians have failed to master their emotions, it seems fair to ask: Are men too labile and undisciplined to hold public office? Or is crying only unleaderly, humiliating, and potentially disqualifying when a woman does it?

Performative, emotional types of all genders are drawn to politics. There’s nothing inherently wrong with showing emotion—it’s human, and I happen to think humanity is a good thing, especially in politics. What’s not good is losing your temper, punching a reporter, or being too obsessed with Twitter to do your job. It’s not stiffer upper lips that women need; it’s power.